Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, the Poet Laureate of Kansas 2009-2011, will speak at 4 p.m. Saturday, April 16, in the Hudson Auditorium of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park. "Finding Our Way Home To Ourselves and This Land: A Reading of Poetry and Prose with Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg" is the title of her presentation. A reception will follow in the Atrium of the Regnier Center. The event is free and open to the public.
Mirriam-Goldberg received her PhD in English and master's degree in creative writing, both from Kansas University, and a bachelor's degree in history, University of Missouri. As founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College, she values social and personal transformation through the spoken, written and sung word. She is the author of 10 books including her most recent "Landed" (poetry, Mammoth Publications), "The Sky Begins At Your Feet" (a memoir on cancer, community and ecology, Ice Cube Press) and the award-winning "Write Where You Are." She is editor of "The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader," and her poetry and prose have been published in more than 50 literary journals and anthologies.
Her project as poet laureate is "Poetry Across Kansas- Reading and Writing Our Way Home," intended to strengthen the presence of poetry in Kansas, build literary communities statewide and enhance Kansans' sense of place through poetry.
Mirriam-Goldberg's presentation is a capstone to an all-day Kansas Writers Symposium, sponsored by JCCC's Kansas Studies Institute and English department. The goal is to facilitate a gathering of writers from diverse disciplines whose work centers on Kansas as a "place." Invited writers include historians, fiction writers, poets, essayists and scientists.